Propagation of oblique waves over small bottom undulation in an ice-covered two-layer fluid

Abstract

Scattering of oblique incident waves by small bottom undulation in a two-layer fluid, where the upper layer has a thin ice-cover while the lower one has the undulation, is investigated within the framework of linearized water wave theory. The ice-cover is being modeled as an elastic plate of very small thickness. There exist two modes of time-harmonic waves–one with lower wave number propagating along the ice-cover (ice-cover mode) and the other with higher wave number along the interface (interfacial mode). A perturbation analysis is employed to solve the corresponding boundary value problem governed by modified Helmholtz equation and thereby evaluating the reflection and transmission coefficients approximately up to first order for both modes. A patch of sinusoidal ripples, having two different wave numbers over two consecutive stretches, is considered as an example and the related coefficients are determined. It is observed that when the wave is incident on the ice-cover surface we always find energy transfer to the interface, but for interfacial incident waves there are parameter ranges for which no energy transfer to the ice-cover surface is possible. Also it is observed that for small angles of incidence, the reflected energy is more as compared to the other angles of incidence. These results are demonstrated in graphical form. From the derived results, the solutions for problems with free surface can be obtained as particular cases.